During a recent gander at Sunday School material from a popular curriculum publisher, it occured to me why we have an entire generation of people who think that the center of everything is 'me'. The material takes Bible stories that are meant to exalt God in all of his revealed beauty, and puts them on the loralistic level of Aesop. Daniel and the Lions Den is a story about how God helps you. David and Goliath is a story about how we should be courageous because God helps you. The list of banal moralisms goes on (These are the actual lesson titles from the curriculum's scope and sequence): God delivers me, God heals me, God loves me, God made my face, God gives me good things, I am happy at church (what is that about?!), Jesus teaches me, Jesus is my friend. This is so wrong. Not that the simple statements are in of themselves wrong. It's just not how we ought to teach the Bible to anybody - children included. So much of the material that is peddled to churches is causing our children to get the false impression that God exists (as the rest of the world exists) to make my life more wonderful. I don't know how the children who are products of this kind of poor teaching (and really bad theology) can come to any other conclusion. "God does stuff for me." That's it.
I have witnessed a rebelion to that sort of lame, moralistic fable exposition that passes itself off as Bible teaching. Last weekend, our District had a youth retreat. The speaker (Dan Seaman)challenged the teenagers to think quite differently of God. God loves God. He is about His glory and not our glory. He makes much of Himself, and he calls us to make much of Him, too. God is not an idolater. He is the only being in all of the universe who can make much of Himself and in that very process show his love for us. Dan did a fantastic job relating this message -- and the kids responded beautifully. That's my first view of a rebellion against turning the Bible into simple, moralistic stories, and not His grand story.
The second view of this rebellion was when I heard Dr. John Piper speak at the Passion '05 conference. He began talking about 'the Glory of God' and there were many 'amens' and much applause -- then he made this statement. "God loves His glory (AMEN!). In fact, God loves His glory more than you." Gasp. You could feel the oxygen leaving the room. Of course, the issue is that he's right. He has to be right. That's how God reveals himself in the Bible.
I am increasingly convinced that we do our children a great disservice in teaching them to think that they indeed are the center of everything. Sunday School curriculum that merely tells kids that God is by their side to help them fulfill all of life's dreams and goals should be banned from the church. We perpetuate the spirit of the age and dumb down our kids with this kind of silliness. I witnessed young people embrace the message of God being great. There was resonance in the room when young people were told that we exist to make much of Jesus and that, in fact, I will be most happy and most satisfied when I do make much of Jesus. That's what Jesus was getting at when he began the Sermon on the Mount saying, "blessed are ...". Our happiness is tied directly to our making much of Him.
The day has come to overthrow and shut down Aesop's Sunday School class. I am ready to commit my efforts to the insurgence.
An end note: For further reading, I highly recommend a rather inexpensive book that's worth it's weight in gold. Graeme Goldsworthy deals with this issue very well in a book from his trilogy entitled "The Gospel and the Kingdom"
